Spending Bill Prohibits Domestic Horse Slaughter

A lengthy battle over whether to allow companies in the US to kill horses for consumption has reached its final chapter.

Congress passed a spending bill yesterday that prohibits the government from allocating money for the inspection of equine slaughter plants, effectively making it illegal to kill horses for public consumption in the US. President Obama will sign the bill tomorrow, which will save taxpayers approximately $5 million. Horse slaughter for domestic consumption was banned in the United States in 2007, but was reinstated four years later. In 2011, plants in New Mexico, Missouri, and Iowa attempted to start slaughtering horses to be served to US consumers, but were prevented due to the intervention of animal-welfare groups. Now, those same groups are attempting to end horse slaughter in the US altogether by urging congress to pass the Safeguard American Food Exports Act, which would prohibit companies from killing horses and shipping the meat to other countries.